They Eulogized Him…..

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

They eulogized him profusely after he died, of course, said a wealth of nice things about the man personally as well as enthusiastically canonized the life he had chosen to live.

Said all the wonderful things a person might expect to hear in that sort of somber situation, plus countless more to boot.

Eulogized the hell out of him, actually, made the guy sound like the second coming of Jesus Christ if Our Most Holy and Blessed Lord had, in fact, been maybe a couple of inches taller in height, shaved more often, been able to brag of stauncher character, and could have boasted of at least a thousand more influential friends and acquaintances in high-up places.

Yes, they eulogized the poor, stiff, formaldehyde-riven son-of-a-bitch until this garishly frozen-faced corpse was nearly ready to vomit and blush with embarrassment through all of those expensive chemicals a professional cadaver handler had injected into his body to make him look presentable, even “good” (Think of the fairy tale featuring “The Emperor Without Clothes” right now when you consider what “good” means in this context, okay?!).

 

But the germane point here is clear:  What is true?  Were all those flattering words truly applicable and accurate with regard to this ridiculous corpse lying “in state” (In a state of what?! Purgatory?!  Alarm?!  Comfort?!  Ecstasy?!  Panic?!) in a three-thousand-dollar, regally embossed, steel-made casket that’ll protect him for perpetuity from those ravenous, predatory earthworms that evidently must be the everlasting scourge of the Underground Kingdom?

Of course not…..

Death serves as the great cleanser, the great purifier, the great equalizer, the great filter.  People—even those who might be undeserving, which undoubtedly includes the great majority of us—are lionized after their deaths to the point where it becomes nauseating.   Ersatz sainthood is posthumously bestowed upon individuals who in their living years never came close to approaching that laudable standard.  Despicable louts become acceptable, ordinary people become exemplars, and good people immediately ascend into demigod status.  All simply because they died.  All because they are no longer around to create trouble for anyone.  All because…..they were once alive and now they no longer are.  Nothing more than that really.  Nothing secondary to estimable exploits on their part.  Nothing secondary to valor or unbridled courage or wanton altruism.  Nothing secondary to true, earned merit.  Death effectively cleanses people of the preponderance of their sins, and humanity’s instinctual leniency elevates virtually everyone to a higher plane of virtue once life leaves their body.  Strange, I know, but true.

But do you want to know the absolutely strangest aspect which attends this riddle?  People who are dead cannot of course fight back or defend themselves in any manner, thus they could be villainized and demonized and satanized ad infinitum with no fear of retribution.  They could be blamed for anything and everything, including the plunging stock market, the irksome food poisoning you picked up at that greasy-spoon restaurant last Saturday evening, the skyrocketing price of artichokes, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, this tediously long winter which has already stretched on for at least thirteen months and  counting, and even the loathsome oaf we currently have residing in the White House—who in truth if they did vote for him they SHOULD be vituperatively and posthumously held responsible for an unforgivable transgression.  Dead people cannot defend their honor, cannot resuscitate damaged reputations, cannot confront and rebut character assassins.  As such, they stand as easy targets for vengeful, cold-hearted survivors, yet surprisingly such a scenario rarely plays out.  Rather, the deceased are granted a free pass and their reputations left intact or–far more commonly as I previously elucidated–said reputations are egregiously escalated beyond recognition. These individuals become the paragons in death they never came close to approaching in life.  And so be it, I guess.  In the spirit of carrying fairness to its nth degree, better that than the opposite…..

 

Yes, they eulogized the guy profusely after he died, naturally, yet what they didn’t do was accurately identify him for what he stands for now and what he best represents at the present time sans a soul—A soul is the transcendent touchstone to consciousness and the only aspect of us which cannot be chemically categorized; therefore our soul represents who we TRULY are and not simply what we look like to others; our physical bodies are merely temporary storage containers which revert back to fundamental carbon derivatives over time following the demise of sentience–which almost certainly fled his body the second his brain ceased functioning.

And what might that lonely abandoned corpse be, you’re probably scratching your head and asking yourself right at this exact moment?

Simple…..

A year-long bonanza of “fresh” food for any resourceful earthworm that can somehow finesse its way inside a steel-walled sarcophagus.

• The wizened old veterinarian returned home at the end of a tiring day of work, all ready to eat a hearty supper and then kick back on his living room sofa to watch a good game of professional football on television. His wife was right there at the front door to greet him, smiling broadly and cheerily inquiring, “How did your day go, Sweetheart?  Was everything fine?  I bet you’re dog-tired after working so hard!!”  The aged veterinarian glanced over at her as he wearily hung his cap and dirty jacket on a door-side hook, before responding in a laconic tone devoid of emotion.  “Oh, alright I guess, Mabel…..when I spoke with you on the phone this morning I was beginning to feel a little hoarse, but after a while it went away and  by this afternoon I was actually hale and hearty and felt like a new man!”  His wife eyed him with dagger-eyed suspicion for several awkward seconds; she subsequently addressed her longtime companion in an irate voice brimming with sarcasm.  “Feeling a little horse this morning, were you?!  No wonder your attitude this afternoon reversed direction so suddenly!  Can’t you be trusted alone with farm animals for even one lousy day, Clem?!  What are you…..some sort of a livestock-infatuated pervert?!?!”

• Each day is different in some respect–that difference may be elephantine or it may be atomic, doesn’t matter–but this variance, more than anything else, is what makes life so special and endearing in the first place. Stability may be comforting and as soothing as a steaming sauna, yet it is also intrinsically yawn-provoking; therefore change of any kind is a good thing and necessary for personal growth.  Embrace any and all changes and affectionately wrap your arms around them, since life is not suddenly going to shift into reverse and zoom backwards simply because you’re feeling nostalgic and want it to.  And do remember this point in passing, in light of the fact it is the most important aspect to be taken away from today’s kernel of advice:  Whatever new change comes your way–positive, negative, or nonaligned–will only be transitory, inasmuch as there will most assuredly be something newer  and different following closely on its heels…..ad infinitum, ad infinitum, ad infinitum…..

• Oh, poor poor baby!!! Weak defenseless thing!!!  The cruel unfairness of it all!!!  Poor Mr. Humongous Telephone Company doesn’t like the inconvenience posed by mail-in payments, hence they penalize those customers who prefer same with an outlandishly short billing interval capped off by an arbitrary late payment fee.  Poor pitiful things, these destitute, struggling telephone companies that next will be standing down on the corner of Jefferson and Elm with a tin cup in their outstretched hand, begging for pennies while hoisting a “God Bless…..anything helps!” placard.  What an utterly mean, despicable person you are, Fred Blahnik, for creating a trifle of inconvenience for struggling Mr. Humongous Telephone Company and selfishly putting YOUR needs and desires ahead of THEIR perceived needs and THEIR wants and desires.  What an ornery, selfish person you are by conflating roles here in thinking that YOU are the customer and THEY are the business that is purportedly serving you and that THEY should therefore bend over backwards in an attempt to satisfy you and in the process retain your business.  What an old-fashioned ingrate you are, Fred Blahnik, for thinking that businesses are there to serve the customer and not vice versa.  Why, Mr. Humongous Telephone Company is so fuckin’ clever I just don’t know what to do with it!  To wit:  They don’t actually come out and say they strongly disapprove of payments by mail, but they do offer such a preposterously truncated turnaround time that late payment fees are nearly automatic if you choose to utilize that method, and who in their right mind wants to pay an onerous late payment fee virtually every month if you don’t have to and another avenue of payment is available?  No, not me either, but I do hereby reserve the right to pay a bill in whatever legal fashion I please, if only to honor principle and establish that I am the customer in this dynamic and as such deeply resentful of being led around by the nose akin to a prize Hereford bull.  The solution to this predicament I have obviously forced poor and deprived Mr. Humongous Telephone Company into?  Very apparent to me.  I switch telephone carriers to a more customer-friendly vendor when my contract expires soon, and Mr. Humongous Phone Company is then rid of a stubborn, cantankerous customer and doesn’t have to deal with the impossible inconvenience of processing a mailed-in payment anymore.  That way we both win!!  They can then go about serving those customers who gladly genuflect and pay homage to them and–like all good slaves–are happy to accommodate Mr. Humongous Phone Company by doing everything in the exact manner in which they are told, and I can happily go off in my own direction and answer only to myself.  After all, being an exemplary customer shouldn’t be so hard; all you really have to do is listen carefully at all times and then do precisely as Mr. Humongous Telephone Company orders you to do.  Everyone wins when customers are not cranky and uncooperative.  Customers can avoid paying objectionable late payment fees that stick in one’s throat like a chicken breastbone, while Mr. Humongous Telephone Company can increase their profit margins and subsequently use some of those obscene profits by paying a billionaire gads and gads of money for the honor of naming a football stadium after them, or maybe even sponsor a basketball game halftime contest where some lucky schmuck can win a million dollars (YOUR money, remember; the stuff doesn’t serendipitously fall out of the sky!) just by sinking a very makeable half-court shot.  Can’t you see the plain and obvious truth here, Fred Blahnik?!?!  Don’t be a rotten apple and chronic complainer who only occasionally bitches at beleaguered customer service representatives over the telephone (I know, I know, Reader, it sounds awful but in lieu of doing that it’s kinda hard to get the corporate CEO on direct-dial and I have yet to have a switchboard operator volunteer to forward me to same)!  Instead, bend over, pull your trousers down to your ankles, and just submit and joyfully accede to pay your monthly telephone bill over the Internet like Mr. Humongous Telephone Company wants and is implicitly forcing you to do. Because it’s always considerably easier and smoother sailing to comfortably settle in and go with the flow as opposed to battling furiously upstream against rapids like a hormone-driven spawning salmon, even if acquiescing sans a whimper does feel like prostituting yourself and doesn’t resonate quite right in your heart and in your conscience.

Immortality

By Frederick J. Blahnik

                 He dreamed of immortality and longed unceasingly for it.  Pined for it.  Worshipped the very concept.  He thought immortality was without question the greatest gift that could be bestowed upon anyone.  After all, who in their right mind doesn’t want to live forever and experience the majesty of life, as well as all the trappings of human consciousness, for perpetuity and beyond?

A life without end…...

Doesn’t the thought of that sound absolutely idyllic to you, the reader?  Limitless time to accomplish everything you’ve always wanted to do–to chase after your most esoteric dreams, to embrace and savor happiness, to exalt in the infinite possibilities earthly life has to offer…..

And yet–when said miracle happened and immortality was finally granted onto him, well……it wasn’t even a tad similar to the nirvana he had envisioned in his mind.  In fact, true immortality came nowhere close to embodying the great things he had dreamt about all those years prior.  Because now those nearly infinite possibilities for generating pleasure he had fantasized about earlier were matched up against a bona fide infinite number of days in which to experience them…..and when he woke up the morning after the last fantasy was experienced for the first time and the act subsequently became as routine and mundane to him as brushing his teeth….…and he next began looking for something new and exciting and totally unique to do in the days and weeks and years which lay before him….…

                I think you understand the picture I’m trying to draw here…..

                At THAT critical juncture, my friend…..what truly is there left to live for???

The lesson he ultimately discovered should have been pretty obvious right from the outset.  With immortality ultimately comes…..boredom.  Yes, that’s right—absolute, certified, unadulterated boredom!   Inasmuch as after you have gone ahead and done everything you always dreamed of doing and exhausted every one of your hedonistic desires, you are then left with an infinite amount of time on your hands with nothing new or exciting left to experiment with for the remainder of days–Correct that!….I should have instead stated the never-ending stream of days–which cascade relentlessly atop one another like ocean waves on a lonely secluded beach.

The inevitable result of all this?

Boredom.  Chronic boredom.  Inconsolable boredom.  Which only grows worse and more tedious and more insidious with each passing day and year.  Because even the world’s most egregious hedonist has a limited appetite for pleasure in the really, REALLY long run, like, say—–eternity and beyond.….…

No, our dissatisfied friend longed for immortality.  Begged for it.  Deified it.  Like virtually everyone else who has ever walked the face of this earth, he thought it was the greatest gift that could be bestowed upon anyone.  Too late, he discovered he was wrong.

Dreadfully wrong…..

And now the man with the guaranteed future–the guy who by all rights should be the happiest person in all the world–is quite paradoxically the most bored individual on this entire planet, someone who–Would you believe it?!?!–strongly envies those mere mortals with shortened lifespans who scurry about hither and yon entertaining themselves not unlike hyperactive ants, content in the knowledge they’ll run out of time and money and quite possibly suitable companionship long before they run out of options for happiness.

So think about our common friend–our eternally “lucky” friend, if you will–the next time you get a free second in your perpetually harried life and find yourself fantasizing about time without end and how wonderful that would be and how there’s really no limit for interesting things to experience and, oh, above all else……always be careful what you wish for, because miracles do happen on occasion and you should therefore unfailingly prepare for the unexpected……

Something Was Chasing Me…..

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

Something was desperately chasing me yesterday evening through the thick woods behind our house…..

 

I didn’t know what the thing was.  Still don’t.  All I know for certain is I was more scared than a stick of butter lying out in the scorching sun!

Truthfully, I never got a good look at it.  I could hear it more than see it, which isn’t saying a hell of a lot since I never bothered peering backwards to catch a fleeting glimpse of this mysterious creature.  I know that may sound chickenshit and cowardly, but let’s be totally honest here:  Would you?!  If you were being frantically chased by some hideous entity that gave no indication it was slowing down any, let alone coming to a complete stop, would you then halt in your tracks and turn around just so you could snap a picture of the onrushing bastard with your cell phone to have documentation to show your friends??

Didn’t think so…..

But the sound this cryptic thing made—that unrelenting panting and the constant thump-thump-thump pounding of its feet…..I’ll…..I’ll NEVER forget those  noises as long as I live!   The creature just kept coming and coming and COOOOOOOMING after me……

I ventured out in the large dense woods backing our rural homestead late yesterday afternoon.  I was feeling restless stuck inside the house—Real fidgety and stir crazy, y’know what I mean??–and I just wanted to clear my brain of some nagging concerns as well as burn off a few slothful calories before true darkness set in.  Nothing too major, nothing too strenuous, nothing too significant…..nothing too unusual about this everyday experience as I casually set out.

I don’t even remember now how I first discovered I was being followed.  That realization was, rather, more of a sense…..an intuition……a FEELING…..that I was being secretly watched and closely scrutinized.  I didn’t know for sure—true– yet somehow I DID know for sure, and this gut feeling–this intuition of mine–wasn’t just a strong suspicion either.  I flat-out KNEW that somebody or some thing was covertly watching me from a distance.  It must have been one of those sixth senses you hear about in the news quite often, the same inscrutable force a lot of cheap horror movies for Gen Xers are constructed around.

Anyway, so I learned at some point in time that I was being watched, and my heart next commenced pounding like Rosie the Riveter and the palms of my hands felt weird, sweaty…..clammy as all get-out.  And, yes, yes, I know in a situation like that experts say you’re supposed to feign courage and act normal and not project an appearance of being an angst-ridden Nervous Nelly, but who in their right mind can do that?!

Seriously!!!

I was damned near shitting and pissing my pants—both at the same time, y’hear—and then I’m supposed to simultaneously act real cool and collected and like I didn’t have a care in the world?

Didn’t happen…..

NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!

Instead, I first started trotting at a fair canter before breaking into a flat-out run—a sprint that would have made Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt blush with pride, truth be told—and I next proceeded to race back toward home through the ever-darkening woods on a rough trail carved into the hardwood forest.  And that’s when I became plainly aware of the fact that this creature or whatever the damned thing might have been was chasing me.  It was no longer conjecture at this point either; I could easily hear the loudly panting wraith hot on my trail.

And so of course I ran even faster, or so it seemed.  I don’t think I could have been any more scared and physically run any faster than when I initiated my harrowing escape, yet I was still able to easily convince my gullible brain that I was covering more ground in a lesser amount of time.

But it wasn’t’ fast enough…..

No, it wasn’t fuckin’ fast enough!!!

Judging by the spooky panting and heavy footsteps pounding behind me, my pursuer was gaining ground at an alarming rate.  Images of diabolical beasts and, worse yet, deranged serial killers danced in my head and clouded my vision.  Those images kept gaining traction…..and traction…..and more traction…..until they were no longer images at all, but rather flesh-and-blood entities sporting demonic eyes and dagger-sharp teeth or, alternatively, demented psychopaths brandishing gleaming knives who were intent on first torturing before  ghoulishly eviscerating me.

I achieved the well-lit shelter of our yard only nano-seconds before I was absolutely, certifiably, guaranteed positive the ruthless creature was about to pounce on Yours Truly and have its way with me.  THANK GOD, TOO!!!

YES, THANK THANK THANK THANK GOD!!!!!

I couldn’t have been more relieved at that juncture if I had just died and received an ironclad guarantee from St. Peter that I would soon be passing through the gates of Heaven riding atop a majestic white horse.  I staggered not unlike a drunken sailor to the grassy clearing directly in front of our house and collapsed in an exhausted heap on the ground.  I lay there for a fairly long time, too, reliving the utter horror from the preceding three minutes while struggling to catch my breath and slow my ridiculously fast heart rate down to a somewhat sane level.

Rex wandered over to me then, wagging his furry tail and slobbering on my sweating face, just waiting to be petted and scratched on the top of his smiling head.  For a chronically lazy dog who specializes in lounging around our yard ninety nine percent of the day—or to rephrase that just a smidgeon—for the remainder of the time when he isn’t gulping down heaping bowls of expensive dogfood and slurping water from the bowl sitting out in our garage, I had a hard time understanding why his tongue was hanging out and his ribs were gently heaving.

• …..he found through years of trial and error that it was best to go to bed at night feeling hungry. In lieu of doing so, he had learned from painful experience that fatness would creep up on a body over time and sneakily take up permanent residence in same without ever bothering to introduce itself or ask permission.  And in collaboration with this finding, he also realized the most beautiful sound in the world was hearing and feeling a growling stomach in the morning when he awoke from his nighttime slumber. That noise signified his oversized corporeality was pleading for calories to support its basic functions, but in the interim it was conspicuously announcing that it would be burning off some of those repugnant fat cells leavened throughout his body before a next meal might be forthcoming.  Thank God at least fat cells stand at the very back of the necessity queue and are consequently the first buggers that are sacrificed when imminent starvation comes calling; they deserve no better fate!  Such is obviously a beneficial thing…..a healthful thing…..a good thing to be grateful for…..

The Price of Happiness

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

Peaceful forenoon, April the first.

The sun’s busy climbing, tulips ready to burst.

The robins are out hunting, yet take time out for singing.

I’m alone in my room……the telephone is ringing.

 

Why did it happen?

Especially to me.

She was all I ever had; all I ever wanted to be.

We were going to be married, soon to be my wife.

For once I’d be happy, and for the rest of my life.

 

Now I sit staring, feeling nothing but numb.

They insist she felt no pain; happened all of a sudden.

But I’ll feel enough for both of us when she goes in the ground.

Lord, what’s left to live for when she’s not around?

 

The clouds are advancing, overtaking the sun.

The birds’ve fallen silent, the wind’s starting to run.

Yesterday was perfect, but today I’m in Hell.

Lord, what’s left to live for when she’s not there to tell?

 

The phone is still ringing, it’s getting louder and shriller.

Outside rain begins pattering…….inside stalks a killer.

• Change it if you can.  If you can’t, just forget it and move on.  More time is wasted on gnashing teeth and wringing hands over immutable situations and circumstances than on appreciating what we have.  Wisdom is acknowledging the status quo when it’s written in stone, even when we don’t like it; ignorance is fighting that status quo tooth-and-nail even when it becomes clear an outcome has been preordained.  Smart people accept essential truths; fatuous people never seem capable of understanding them and thus wind up ceaselessly waging battles they have no chance of winning.

• Dream big or live small! Cinderella stories rarely happen by accident.  Shoving fairy tales aside for a moment, these inspirational paeans far more commonly happen by design and as the direct product of wildly creative thinking in the beginning, later augmented by hard, targeted work.  Reach for the sky, not for that low-hanging apple branch over there.  The only way you can accomplish great things is by dreaming great things.  Do NOT set boundaries on your imagination, because boundaries are by definition self-limiting and then you are placing firm constraints on the life you want to live.  Setting definite life parameters is not exactly a recipe for grand success, but instead a recipe for a miniature life lived exclusively inside one of those cute shake-me-up snow domes sold at Christmastime.